Iain Duncan Smith is today fighting for his political life as he faces a vote of confidence from his own MPs. Here former Tyneside councillor Derek Conway, now MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup in Kent, explains to Chronicle readers why he helped force tonight's showdown.

"Politics is almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times," so said Winston Churchill in 1920.

Iain Duncan Smith will be reflecting on this maxim again and again as Conservative MPs meet today to decide if they have had enough of his "leadership".

A beleaguered John Major was so fed up with sniping from disaffected backbenchers (one Duncan-Smith among the most prominent) that he resigned his leadership, called a snap party election and told them to "sack me or back me" the result was he won, but the sniping still continued.

Because IDS was so involved in that campaign to destroy a Conservative Government, he must know what to expect from others - they are simply following his example.

This history of disloyalty has dogged him from the outset of his leadership, for it is very difficult to cry "be loyal, be loyal", when your main claim to fame was being bloody awkward!

But that is the past. Now every couple of months IDS loses a senior staffer from Conservative central office on sour terms.

Huge sums in silence-buying pay-offs are made (nearly half a million pounds so far) then up pops the paid-off victim to stir it.

Far from fermenting this Groundhog Day cycle of misery, backbench Tory MPs are as bewildered by HQ antics as the watching public.

Off to Blackpool the Tory Party went for the leader's big speech, to fire up the campaigning fever of activists, as the high point of the week.

A crib sheet was issued to selected cheerleaders with 17 spots marked for ecstatic standing ovations (let's not risk spontaneity).

One of IDS's most fervent early supporters, Lord Tebbit, described the speech as "toe-curling" and appalled Tory MPs returned to Westminster demoralised.

Back at the shop, no MP wanted to talk about the weather, it was all about the chances of Iain surviving October. Labour MPs are in despair that the Conservative Party would get its act together under a new leader. Why are they so keen to keep IDS?

In the constituencies, MPs are busy contacting leading local party activists to sound out opinion, but Ken Clarke's statement that he is not a candidate will not have helped Mr Duncan-Smith, for the grass-roots members will be less worried about ditching him if they have no fear of Ken replacing him.

Ken Clarke is hugely able and popular, with a large section of voters who do not usually support Tory candidates, but for the Tory Party his lifelong devotion to Europe is not and never will be acceptable.

To be frank, IDS got the job because in the final run off the choice was really Ken Clarke or anybody but Ken Clarke.

So is the Tory Party doomed? After joining in Gateshead 36 years ago, I believe not.

There are several members of the Shadow Cabinet who have more than enough ability to be very effective leaders. My party is not a one-man band and it is arrogant of any grouping around IDS to argue otherwise.

If the challenge succeeds later today, and I believe it will, then the biggest losers will be the Labour Government, for the Conservative Party will rally behind a new effective and competent leader and next year will herald a transformed political scene.

The country is crying out for someone to take on Tony Blair and for my bet, any one of the major names canvassed will do just that.

Labour's them tune of 1997 Things Can Only Get Better turned out wrong for the country, but that tune is spot on for the Tory Party - for MPs it is time to be brave.

Few insiders believe IDS will win the vote

Iain Duncan Smith was today making a last ditch bid at Westminster to hang on to his job as the Tory leader.

He was telling the MPs who will decide tonight whether or not he stays that he had made mistakes but was getting better.

And in a major speech to the Tory Party's 1922 Back Bench Committee before the crucial vote of confidence starts this afternoon Mr Duncan Smith warned the blood-letting of a leadership contest could cost the Tories all the gains they had made since he took over.

But the North East's only Tory MP Peter Atkinson has announced he will not be backing his leader.

The Hexham MP said: "If you ask me if I will vote for him, no, of course I won't.

"In all my public utterances I have been loyal to and defended Iain Duncan Smith. But I have formed the view some time ago that the Conservative Party would not be able to win an election under his leadership.

"I pay tribute to what Iain has done. I think he has done a very considerable job. He has formed a very good shadow team and I think he's shown himself to be a decent man.

"But in my view he didn't have it in him to lead the party to victory.

"We have a Government getting more unpopular by the day and we need to highlight Labour's failures and put the searchlight on Labour and away from us."

Mr Duncan Smith claims he can win the vote, but most Tory insiders believe that following yesterday's revelation that the necessary 25 MPs had called for the ballot his chances of survival are slim.